Our Story

Still Fighting Against Animal Testing

At LUSH, we believe in buying ingredients only from companies that do not commission tests on animals and in testing our products on humans.

Fighting animal testing should be more than a slogan; it needs to be a genuine practice. Unfortunately, it’s become commonplace in the North American cosmetics industry to test products and their ingredients on animals in labs. Laboratory testing is done to substances that make up these cosmetic products, to see whether they are likely to harm people, or damage the environment when they are disposed of.

A History on the Fight Against Animal Testing

We’ve been against animal testing for over 30 years and will continue to inform, encourage and participate in the fight for animal rights. We’re proud to say that the founders of LUSH have been passionately fighting against animal testing during all of this time, long before LUSH was even an idea. Since the movement to stop animal testing started, policies have been created to work with cosmetics companies and raw materials suppliers to end animal cruelty.

Not Legally Required

As a cosmetics company we care deeply about both the quality of our products and the safety of our customers, and we happily comply with federal safety standards. Cosmetic companies are responsible for providing safety assurances in whatever manner they deem appropriate. This can be done without any new animal testing by relying on the roughly 20,000 established cosmetic ingredients that have already been evaluated for their safety, and through the use of a growing number of proven, non-animal test methods.

Alternatives

The science of cosmetics safety testing has progressed greatly in recent years, and there are now dozens of proven non-animal test methods accepted by government regulators of cosmetics. Examples include 3-dimensional human skin models, which can fully replace the use of rabbits for skin irritation testing, and cell culture tests for sunlight-induced “photo”-toxicity, genetic mutations, and other harmful effects. Non-animal methods have been shown to be scientifically superior – and usually take less time to complete, at a fraction of the cost of animal experiments.

Our Policy

Our policy is the result of a personal effort to reduce animal testing, for companies who supply raw materials to change the way they test for safety and to stop money from going to companies who we believe are morally unsound.

We operate our own unique Supplier Specific Boycott, which states we will not buy any ingredient from any manufacturer or supplier that tests anything they produce on any animals for any reason. We ensure the safety of their products by only using ingredients with a long history of safe use, and by testing the finished products on a panel of human volunteers. We support the development and validation of non-animal tests, and campaign against legislation that requires animals to be experimented on. Not only is LUSH passionate about the animal testing policy, our passion also extends to the commitment we have to sourcing ingredients from suppliers that are congruent with our ethics and standards.

Our extremely strict policy against animal testing is unique, and we want our peers in the cosmetics industry to adopt the same stance. We encourage you to boycott cosmetics companies that engage in animal testing.

The LUSH Prize

While we have spoken out against animal testing for years, most of our efforts have been focused on our own strict policy and avoiding animal testing. But it is no longer enough for us to passively wait for animal testing to end. We decided to put our money where our mouth is and now offer the LUSH Prize, awarded annually. The £250,000 prize fund, the biggest prize in the alternative testing sector, focuses pressure on safety testing for consumer products in a way which complements projects which already address alternatives to the animal testing of medicines and awards prizes for Science, Training, Lobbying, Public Awareness, and Young Researchers. It is a way that everyone at LUSH, our customers, and the wider public can become involved in the fight to end animal testing.